By Veruschka Pandey
Yesterday, by a shore, I caught a glimpse of a little girl
Enfolding an old newspaper into a boat, to send afloat
Within a stream of a million shimmering, silver pearls.
Memories gushed back like hammering waves, and throttled my throat.
She was me.
I was her.
All I could see,
Was a blur.
A haze of days, days of fears.
A bloody war, which has the world upon the floor, I thought by the shore,
As the boat was carried by the laughing water, which shrieked in glee as it crashed
Upon rocks, and washed away our tears.
I saw the crowd, the smiling faces, the sun, the beach, the sand, disappear—
All that was left was the stream, and my mother.
How guns and bombs
Vapourised my mom.
It sent away her thoughts, her existence, her reality.
It powdered her face, her arms, her legs, her knees.
It stole away all traces of a life.
It erased a sister, a daughter, a mother, a wife.
Far into the universe, among the stars—
“Mom, are you on Jupiter or Mars?”
It didn’t leave behind a body.
All it left behind was a broken child, me.
Ashes and dust encircling, was all to see.
And I knew.
I knew that amongst this insignificant dust,
Amidst this sorrow and rust
Which tornadoes around me, I caught a speck.
A speck could be my existence wrecked.
This small speck falling upon land
And now composing the sand
Could be a human that thrived—
That laughed, that felt, that sighed, that jibed—
A human that didn’t survive…
This speck could be my mom,
Who had been destroyed by guns and bombs.
A war between two countries
Had abolished a blameless human’s destiny, an eternity
Of a broken daughter, and a broken mother amongst the debris.
The stream where the girl’s glee fled
Was now bleeding, crimson red,
For all I could see was my youth floating upon a bed—
A bed where she lay dead.
The screeching laughs of the sea
Were now screams of sadness, pain and plea.
As it crashed upon the rocks now, hammering,
I could feel the sea hurt me and sting.
I wasn’t the girl.
She wasn’t me.
I was the boat.
Floating towards destiny.